This Country is a Joke.

nadir

I am living in Dublin 3, in a brand new apartment complex (well one year old) the block is nearly full at this stage, however it is IMPOSSIBLE to get an internet connection other than going with clearwire. (Which I have just done).
There is no telephone line in the whole building which I think has about 60 apartments, and no NTL broadband support, ariels are banned by management company, and I am bound by contract not to erect one.
Eircom say they have plans to install a phone line to the building in April 2007, at which time my 12 month contract will be up. I pay 600 euros a month rent, and while the complex is nice to live in, I would have thought basic communication would be a right in the day and age, rather than a privalidge.
I spent 6 months ringing every ISP in the country constantly, and got hardly any response, lodged a complaint with comreg to which I got no response.
ARGHHHHHHH, GAH, Bleh etc.
This country sucks ass!!!

Drapper

nadir wrote:

This country sucks ass!!!

Being patriotic, you know where the airport is http://www.12travel.com/goto/ie_maps/city_dublin/overview.html#map? if that does suite here is a the stenna website :- http://www.stenaline.ie/stena_line/gb/stena_line_ireland.html

!:D

Cabaal

I'm curious why are Eircom refusing to install phonelines, surely the builders installed all the setup required for eircom to just connect up their lines to the building?

nadir

there was some disagreement between eircom and the builders, i dont know, but anyway it got delayed, in which time the county council built a new road in the way which blocked putting in the phone line.
Eircom now need planning permission to tear up the road to insert the new phone cable. Something like that was mentioned at one stage.

Foxwood

I don't have any sympathy for someone who rents accomodation first, and then complains that they can't get broadband.

If it's that important to you, then refuse to rent accomodation that doesn't meet your basic requirements. As long as people are prepared to rent a place that doesn't have broadband, then developers will build them that way, and speculators will buy them to rent to "mortgage slaves" who'll pay the mortgage for them.

Cabaal

I still have pitty on him in fairness, how was he supposed to know that it would take so long for a PSTN line to be installed into a aprt in the middle of Dublin in this day and age.

Its very poor state of affairs from both eircom and the builders.

I'm curious, although Eircom don't have the lines connected is their phone sockets installed in each apartment?

Ifs so it might be worth bringing this up with the owner of the complex, perhaps look for a reduction in rent since they esentially installed a service that can't be used and was expected when you looked at the place and agreed to your contract.

pinksoir

well I do have sympathy. Even developing world cities have phone and communications. The fact that Eircomstill have a monopoly over the phone lines, despite becoming a private company, is yet another example of how backward this country is. In Sweden, all new appatments are built with an internet acces point through which any ISP can set up broadband for the occupant. For a country such as ours, ie one whose wealth and economy is heavily reliant on foreign investment, mainly technology based, you'd thik that someting like this would be standard.

However, Foxwood is right. Renting new appartments, in deed any apatment at all, is just throwing your money away. But again, that is more to do with the backwardness of this country. Nobody can really afford to buy a property except the already wealthy, hence most peole are forced to rent. Vicious circle, or fáinne fí, as you might write in leaving cert Irish. We are the fastest growing consumerist/capitalist economy in the world, but the only country in which this happened that results in teh young being worse off than the oldler citizens.

Which begs the question, why stay here? The expendable income to buy "stuff" is a lure to most people; nice TV, computers etc. But unfortunately the value of these things dont hold and the reality is that owning property is out of reach for the majority, hence long term investment is put out of mind and money is thrown away to landlords who are already loaded.

Bottom line - Ireland does suck. But it's home.

Sorry for the rant.

ntlbell

Had you no way of checking these things out before you took the apartment?

Prisoner6409

I blame the Irish Govt(selling off Eircom), Eircom for constantly blocking others who do want to supply BB and Comreg for being next to useless. We should not be in such a state where ppl have to check weather a whole complex of apartments have a phone line or not, it's a joke. Regulations should have been in place years ago to force new developments to provide the proper communications infastructure.

rogue-entity

Prisoner6409 wrote:

I blame the Irish Govt(selling off Eircom), Eircom for constantly blocking others who do want to supply BB and Comreg for being next to useless. We should not be in such a state where ppl have to check weather a whole complex of apartments have a phone line or not, it's a joke. Regulations should have been in place years ago to force new developments to provide the proper communications infastructure.

The biggest mistake was selling eircom the way they did. In the same way that National Grid in the UK is agnostic to energy suppliers, the Telco Network should be run by a not-for-profit company that charges eircom, BT and other companies to use the national telephone network. BT would then not have needed to build its own as they could use the same fibre as eircom for the same price. As the USO, eircom would still own all the lines and charge line rental unless a customer switched, then the line would transfer to the new supplier *keeps dreaming*. Other providers like BT could supply lines as requested, while resellers like Perlico could not.

Same would hold through for broadband, ISPs could get access to the exchanges from the TelcoNetwork, and the customers line from Eircom (or the customers supplier). Nothing to stop the line supplier from charging for access to provide broadband to make more money.

But right now, we really need a firmhanded Comms minister who will force the introduction of €10/mnth 1800-number flatrate broadband. So Eircom will be forced to lose money on dialup and thereby providing an incentive to provide more profitable broadband to more people, while ensuring those who cant get broadband/dont want broadband a cheap means of getting online. But, I will sooner see pigs fly then this excuse of a government grow a pair of balls when dealing with eircom, vodafone and other exploitive monopolies.

Skyuser

It's the apartment block not the country. You shouldn't have moved in their should you.

nadir

ntlbell wrote:

Had you no way of checking these things out before you took the apartment?

My Flatmate got the apartment for us, I was in Japan at the time, so I left it to him to check it out, I don't blame him though, it's fully wired, on the inside, even has an NTL TV port, and phone lines in every room.
How was he to know NTL broadband would not be supported and the phone cables were dead.
It think its reasonable to assume that they should work??? especially so close to the centre and in a luxury apartment block.

Foxwood

nadir wrote:

It think its reasonable to assume that they should work??? especially so close to the centre and in a luxury apartment block.

???? Maybe it's just me, but I'd have asked. "What's the story with NTL - is it included in the rent or do I have to organize my own subscription?".

I wouldn't rent an apartment in Dubin without at least flicking on the lights to make sure that the bloody electricity worked!

If you want an apartment with broadband, rent one. It's not "this countrys" fault that you don't have broadband, it's your flatmates fault (and yours). If people like you don't insist on broadband, then "the market" won't deliver.

machalla

Not with NTL, no. If you call them up with a street address or even an area they can tell you if NTL broadband is available or not. Its nothing new.

I have called them various times about areas that are in the city centre and its surprising how little of the city centre and surrounds cannot get NTL BB. Pearse street for instance or the bits near the city centre don't have it that I'm aware of.

optiplexgx270

Your builders are useless so quit moaning in a broadband forum.

Cabaal

optiplexgx270 wrote:

Your builders are useless so quit moaning in a broadband forum.

While the builders who built the place might be useless I believe its still perfectly reasonable to believe that you can get a standard phoneline working in your flat if there's alraedy a phone socket installed by the builders.

Its reasonable to believe that the infrastructure is in place, obviously in this case it was not and its a joke that the builders did not sort this with Eircom

robinph

Cabaal wrote:

While the builders who built the place might be useless I believe its still perfectly reasonable to believe that you can get a standard phoneline working in your flat if there's alraedy a phone socket installed by the builders.

Its reasonable to believe that the infrastructure is in place, obviously in this case it was not and its a joke that the builders did not sort this with Eircom

People would be complaining if they moved into a new residence that the builders had been good enough to install water taps and electrical outlets in the wall, but then left it up to each individual to then get onto the water and electric companies to see if they could get round to connecting up all the pipes outside to their network at some point. If a place has cable tv sockets and telephone sockets already installed in the walls then I'd expect them to be already connected to the relavent networks as well.

Foxwood

robinph wrote:

People would be complaining if they moved into a new residence that the builders had been good enough to install water taps and electrical outlets in the wall, but then left it up to each individual to then get onto the water and electric companies to see if they could get round to connecting up all the pipes outside to their network at some point.

Actually, I don't think even the greediest speculator would buy or the dopiest renter would rent an apartment that didn't have electricty or running water.

But they're falling over themselves to buy and rent apartments that don't have phone lines or cable TV access. Why? Because there are lots of people who don't really mind that much if they don't have internet access.

If a place has cable tv sockets and telephone sockets already installed in the walls then I'd expect them to be already connected to the relavent networks as well.

If this was the only apartment in the country that had this problem, that might be a reasonable expectation, but it boggles the mind that anyone who has not just arrived off the plane from a first word country would make such an assumption in any modern Irish apartment. Internet access isn't on the "must have" list of most renters, and therefor it isn't on the "must provide" list of most builders/speculators.

vibe666

why is everyone having a go at this guy?

personally, i think it's very reasonable to expect a phoneline be available in a 1yr old apartment block, and quite frankly ludicrus to even consider otherwise, even in ireland.

a phone socket on a wall would indicate to most people that there is an ability to get a phoneline, and in the middle of the capital city in the 21st century it's reasonable to expect broadband availability given it's alleged prevelence at the very least in Dublin if not everywhere else.

yeas, if you were going to rent an apartment you'd be right to flick on a light or two just to make sure, but anyone walking around the north of dublin carrying a pstn phone around with them randomly plugging it in wouldn't get very far before they werelocked away would they?

whilst looking at apartments (especially new ones) it would be quite possible that the elcetricity or water wouldn't be on when you visit, but you'd be very surprised if they hadn't connected it to the mains supply when you moved in wouldn't you?

personally in this day and age i wouldn't put a phoneline much behind basic facilities as a basic requirement.

I'd be surprised if i rented a new apartment in delhi and it didn't have a phoneline.

Foxwood

vibe666 wrote:

why is everyone having a go at this guy?

Because he's moaning about something, but not prepared to do anything useful about it (like move to an appartment that does have the facilities he wants).

personally, i think it's very reasonable to expect a phoneline be available in a 1yr old apartment block, and quite frankly ludicrus to even consider otherwise, even in ireland.

If people refused to rent apartments that didn't have phonelines, then every apartment woud have a phoneline. Because Irelands whole experience of building apartment complexes post dates the widespread adoption of mobile phones, phoneline are NOT considered necessary by most renters, therefore they aren't particularly high on either developers or speculators lists of requirements.

a phone socket on a wall would indicate to most people that there is an ability to get a phoneline, and in the middle of the capital city in the 21st century it's reasonable to expect broadband availability given it's alleged prevelence at the very least in Dublin if not everywhere else.

Yeah, if you haven't actually lived in Ireland for the last 10 years, maybe. If you have lived in Ireland, and you think it's "reasonable to expect broadband availability" anywhere, then you obviously haven't been paying attention.

yeas, if you were going to rent an apartment you'd be right to flick on a light or two just to make sure, but anyone walking around the north of dublin carrying a pstn phone around with them randomly plugging it in wouldn't get very far before they werelocked away would they?

Do you really need a 3 digit IQ to figure out that asking a question of whoever is showing the apartment is the equivalent of flicking a lightswitch?

personally in this day and age i wouldn't put a phoneline much behind basic facilities as a basic requirement.

Then you're obviously in a small minority, because huge numbers of renters in Dublin have no interest in a phoneline, and don't consider it a "basic requirement".

pjq

We are all on the same wavelength here ,
Nadir came from a Japanese City with a 1st world 21st century mind set .
Foxwood has been here all along and knows - “If you have lived in Ireland, and you think it's "reasonable to expect broadband availability" anywhere, then you obviously haven't been paying attention.”
Now if Nadir had come from Nairobi , he would have known what to expect from “Public Services “ ( or anything tainted by public services). He has learned his lesson.
But the most important lesson for Nadir is that , just like in the last century … we are still not up to a bit of criticism .
The best suggestion came from Drapper yesterday ( directions to the airport) , but poor Nadir thinks that the last thing he needs is another brush with 3rd world infrastructure !!

Willymuncher

Had a similiar problem with Eircom telling me that phonelines would not exist in my new estate until August 2007, bloody ridiculious but I accepted it, they had sent me out an order form which I completed and sent it back with a deposit which pissed me off even more that they had my money and I had no phoneline, it wasn't until I seen an engineer carry out work across the road that I rang them up again, was told 2007 again and again until I finally got one helpful assistant who informed me that the work should have been carried out in late July, he gave me an engineer's number whom I have yet to call but this should never happen....I wish I could say that I would not use Eircom again...but I don't have a choice.

Planning a move to the states in January and I certainly won't miss this kind of service I've come to expect from living here all my life.

Dellas

I have been living here for 10 years . I dont think the country sucks I just think that the government is lazy and unwilling to do anything about the third world communications system in this country. From Broadband to 3G mobile coverage it really is a joke. The government should have a realistic plan to provide broadband to the whole country and not just Dublin !!! Where I live I have no broadband , no clearwire,no digiweb no nothing !!! I can get sattalite for €1500!!! So for the guy who can get clearwire and is complaning , count yourself lucky . I wish I could get any kind of broadband which Eircom promised me 2 years ago and Im still waiting. At the moment Im on 28kbps dial up .:mad: